External_Choices not Allowing me to Autocomplete

[CamilleEckel]

I am trying to create a species list that the collector adds as many species to from the external_choices as they find in the plot, but I seem to be missing some link to the external list. It creates the box, and doesn't come up with any errors, but it won't let me type the species name in the list or select from anything. I think I must be have the wrong choice filter on? But I'm not entirely sure.

I am also trying to make it so that the collector can type in the species code (label::code), and see the label name come up. Is that possible?

Thanks!

[Jim-Moore]

Hi Camille

Thanks for providing your XLSForm. Looks like the issue is with the choice filter. In your survey, the choice filter is set as the value of the gesp_select question. The gesp_select question has a default value of 1, while all choices in your choice list have a value of "gesp" in the "gesp" column on the external_choices sheet, so the choice filter cannot get a match.

Setting the default of the gesp_select question to "gesp" (without quotes) will do the trick. This will return all 4,753 choices in the Plants choice list, so you could consider using the choice filter to break the list down into sub-categories. Here is a handy blog that demonstrates the effective use of cascading selects (using tree species as an example!): https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2015/10/22/cascading-selects-and-external-selects. There's also a Cascading Selects sample survey in Connect that demos this technique. And here's some info in the Survey123 documentation: Cascading and external selects—ArcGIS Survey123 | Documentation.

Regarding using the code for autocomplete - autocomplete will search the text in the label only. One option would be to incorporate the code into the label for each choice, e.g. "Abdra brachycarpa (Abdbra)".

Also noticed that for the herblist question the join function is using the repeat name (herb_list). You'll likely want to use the join() function on the herb_dom question, e.g. join(',',${herb_dom}), to concatenate all the answers to that question across the repeat.

Best,

Jim